USDA Puts Brakes on Monsanto, Dow GMO Crop Petitions

By Josh Long

WASHINGTONFarmers who plant genetically-modified (GMO) crops that are resistant to weedkillers have begun encountering a dilemma. The weeds are fighting back against glyphosate, the powerful herbicide.

In the United States, roughly one third of the acres of field corn and soybeans are affected by weeds that are resistant to glyphosate and difficult to exterminate, according to Garry Hamlin, a spokesman with Dow AgroSciences, the pest management and biotechnology products company.

"Although glyphosate has been widely used for more than 30 years, only a handful of weeds have been reported to have developed resistance to glyphosate; however, most of these have been identified in the past [five to eight] years," Dow AgroSciences stated in documents filed in 2011 with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Actually, the figures are now higher, according to Monsanto Company, the agricultural biotechnology giant whose Roundup Ready crops tolerate glyphosate. Citing 2012 figures, Monsanto noted last summer in government documents that 13 species of weeds have been confirmed to survive glyphosate.

Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences are working on solutions to the growing number of superweeds by allowing farmers to spray various herbicides on crops that have been engineered to survive the treatment of the weedkillers.

Dow is seeking to deregulate corn and soybean varieties that are resistant to a herbicide known as 2, 4 dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2, 4-D), while Monsanto has asked USDA to deregulate a soybean and cotton variety that are resistant to the herbicide, dicamba. Monsanto's genetically-modified cotton also is resistant to the herbicide, glufosinate. According to USDA, 2, 4-D and dicamba have been used safely across the United States since the 1960s to control weeds.

USDA to Study Environmental Impacts

But Dow AgroSciences and Monsanto will have to wait on their petitions because USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) recently announced plans to prepare environmental impact statements in connection with its decision making process. The agency previously conducted "environmental assessments."

The environmental studies will delay plans to bring the new crops to market.

Although Dow AgroSciences wanted to make the crops available to farmers in 2014, it now anticipates a launch date of 2015, said Hamlin, who noted the corn crop would be mostly used to feed cattle.

In a May 10 press release, Monsanto said it would work with farmers to begin trials of the soybeans beginning this season and next. The agricultural company also plans to support trials of the genetically-modified cotton in 2014.

APHIS explained it must prepare an environmental impact statement  under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) if it determines "its potential regulatory decision may significantly impact the quality of the human environment."

Although USDA doesn't always conduct an EIS when examining whether to deregulate a genetically-modified crop, watchdog groups such as the Center for Food Safety have successfully challenged some deregulation decisions based on the legal argument that the agency failed to follow NEPA. For instance, that's what happened after Monsanto was granted approval to sell its Roundup Ready Alfalfa.

"While the EISs will look more broadly at potential impacts to the environment as a whole, APHIS regulatory authority is based on The Plant Protection Act and the Agencys oversight is specific to evaluating the potential for the GE plants to pose a plant pest risk to crops or other plants," the agency stated in a press release.

Crops Another Tool to Fight Weeds

The genetically-modified crops could help farmers fight weeds that have proven resistant to other herbicides, such as glyphosate.

U.S. farmers tell us that they need these critical technologies to help manage tough-to-control weeds on their farms to maximize yield potential and meet the worlds growing demands," said Lisa Safarian, U.S. Row Crops Lead for Monsanto, in a statement. While unexpected, well use this timing to broaden the development of high-yielding varieties that well ultimately be able to deliver to the farm."

Hamlin, the Dow AgroSciences spokesman, said weeds that are resistant to glyphosate can cause significant problems for farmers, such as creating an infestation that requires them to remove the pests by hand.

Glyphosate is widespread today because, in part, it doesn't kill many crops that have been genetically modified to withstand the weedkiller. U.S. crops that withstand glyphosate now comprise more than 90% of soybean acres and more than 60% of corn and cotton acres, according to Dow AgroSciences in one of its petitions before APHIS. According to Monsanto, more than 75% of cotton acres tolerate glyphosate.

When a farmer sprays different herbicides such as dicamba and 2, 4-D, there is "much less potential for the weeds to adapt," Hamlin said.

In public comments posted in March, Melinda Chapman of Steven Chapman Farms in Lorenzo, Texas, expressed support for the approval of Monsanto's cotton petition.

"Technologies such as dicamba and glufosinate tolerant cotton offer cotton growers convenience by potentially reducing the number of applications by using more effective treatments and the ability to stay profitable and competitive in the global marketplace through effective and sustainable weed management options," she wrote.

Kelly Kettner, who describes herself as a cotton producer in Muleshoe, Texas, opposes Monsanto's petition, expressing skepticism that the technology will mitigate the problem of superweeds.

"It has taken less than 10 years to make glyphosate an ineffective product. I do not think the answer to our weed problems is to throw more gmo technology toward them," she wrote in comments posted in March. "What is Monsanto's answer to the day when our weeds are resistant to glyphosate, glufosinate, and dicamba?"

Superweeds Blamed for Increased Herbicide Use

The Center for Food Safety maintains approval of the new crops would cause a 'dramatic increase' in the use of herbicides that are connected to health problems, according to a Bloomberg article. It's not alone. Charles Benbrook, a research professor with Washington State University, posits that the volume of 2, 4-D sprayed could increase herbicide use by roughly 50% if USDA approves corn and soybeans that are resistant to it.

During the first six years of commercial use from 1996 to 2001, herbicide-tolerant and Bt-transgenic crops actually decreased pesticide use by 31 million pounds, according to Benbrook. But the professor contends overreliance on the weedkillers has led to the emergence of weeds that survive the treatment, resulting in the application of more herbicides to crops including corn, cotton and soybeans.

Compared to herbicide use rates per hectare on non herbicide-resistant (HR) hectares, HR crops increased herbicide use in the United States by 527 million pounds from 1996 through 2011, the professor wrote last year in a paper published in Environmental Sciences Europe.

Not only are Benbrook's estimates on the increased use of herbicide "exaggerated", he is not considering the consequences of doing nothing to exterminate the growing problem of resistant weeds, according to Hamlin.

"Correcting the problem with new technology is ultimately going to be a better option for the sustainability of agriculture than allowing resistance to glyphosate to continue building to essentially unmanageable levels," he said.